Lightbeam: Mozilla releases add-on that reveals online data tracking

Mozilla has released Lightbeam, a Firefox add-on that aims to
help people understand and visualise the data tracking that occurs
online.

Lightbeam is a second iteration of an experimental add-on called
Collusion,
which was a personal project launched by Mozilla software developer
Atul Varma. The browser extension creates a real-time graph of all
of the tracking cookies being deposited on your browser as you move
from site to site. It can distinguish between behavioural tracking
cookies and non-behavioural ones. The idea is that users can better
understand which sites are using the same behaviourally targeted
advertisements (ahem, Criteo).

The tool aims to highlight both the first and third party
companies that people interact with as they travel across the web.
It shows a map of the websites you visit and highlights the third
parties that are also active on those pages. It will analyse the
relationships between various first and third party sites that are
stored in your online data.

Everyone who downloads Lightbeam will be contributing to a
central open database showing how first and third party sites are
connected to each other. "Call it a Wizard of Oz moment for the
web, where users collectively provide a way to pull back the
curtain to see its inner workings," Mozilla explains.

The add-on presents the data back to the user in three
interactive forms -- Graph, Clock and List. The Graph view shows
you a visualisation of every site you visit and all of the third
party requests made from your browser. The Clock view lets you
examine connections over a 24-hour period. The List view provides
more options for zooming in on individual sites.

Lightbeam has been funded by a grant from the Ford Foundation
and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, helped
by students at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design. All the
code for Lightbeam has been posted to Github so that others may
hack, expand and improve it.

Mozilla is keen to point out that not all tracking is bad --
many services rely on user data to provide relevant content and to
enhance the online experience -- for example, cookies are used for auto-filling forms, counting visitors,
storing shopping basket items and recording user preferences. The
average
website has around 14 cookies per page, roughly 32 percent of
which come from the website owner and the rest from
third-parties.

Mozilla will be showcasing the product at its
annual technology conference Mozfest this weekend.